Friday 21/02/03 The Ataris @ Academy, Manchester

I arrived with an open mind. Even though the warning siren was shrill in my ear when noticing that the entire audience wasn't old enough to drink legally and their attire was of punk/skate/geek/ska mix, I still hadn't cast judgement on the band yet. Then the support bands 'played'. I wont go further than 'one trick pony', and not a very good pony trick either.

"The Ataris are a lot better than these," I was told by a young fan doing his best to be objective about the dross we were watching. "They have a lot more variety in their songs."

No they don't lad.

The Ataris came on to whoops of delight from the crowd of teenagers surrounding me. A bottle of water thrown, a hundred 'katanga' 'hand-symbols of rawk' shown and the band kicked off into… the exact same set that the last two bands had played! No variety in tempo or for that matter melody. I honestly tried to find the positives within this whole evening and I left with only one - the band are tight as musicians. (Not that the drummer has much to worry about as he plays the same tempo for every song.)

So what is going on here? The problem lies within the audience itself. Here we have middle class 'yoof' rebelling to a middle class band. Except what are they rebelling against? Do they think that by wearing jeans around their ass and chains hanging from their ears that they will shock the world? It sickens me that this band was described to me as 'quite punky' by a fellow hack before the gig. How can this anaemic, jock strap wearing US college campus rawk band even dare to be in the same sentence as punk?

In the late 70's the punk movement was about ethics, politics, fashion, social class and standing. It was your life, not something you dressed up to do on a Friday night. Here tonight, we have a sanitised, commercialised, Americanised version and it is wrong to compare the two. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-US music or aspects of its culture.

But this is a plastic rebellion, with no meaning, direction or future. I pity those that follow it, where is there to go after the Ataris et al disappear? Believe me, unless they change their ways soon and discover a true musical movement worth fighting for, in five years time this audience will be listening to The Lighthouse Family or some American version of them. It is frightening.

If you think I am taking the piss, and you were at the Ataris, do me something. Go to your parent's record collection. If you see records by The Sex Pistols, The Dammed, Sham 69 etc, then recoil in horror at a simple truth… your parents were a lot cooler than you. They were involved in a movement that meant something, that changed the way people thought, worked, recorded, dressed, lived. Can you honestly say the music of the Ataris will do the same? If the answer is yes come back in 18 months and I'll ask you again.

There is good music to be had, there is a huge potential for a new musical movement. The Ataris should not and will not be part of it. 'Yoof' - look around you.